Repentance and Prayer Day 2021: Everything is closed in one federal state - you can still shop here on the public holiday

Repentance and Prayer Day is a popular holiday for all students and teachers throughout Bavaria, they are allowed to stay at home.

Only in one federal state do all the others have time off.

The shops there are also closed.

Dresden - For many Bavarian families, the Day of Repentance and Prayer is the starting signal for Christmas baking.

Schoolchildren do not have to go to school, and many toddlers also have some time off from the exciting day-to-day life in kindergarten.

Only the parents have to go to work.

This year, the public holiday falls on Wednesday, November 17, 2021. In one federal state, adults and children are allowed to stay at home.

Day of Repentance and Prayer: What is celebrated on this day?

The Day of Repentance and Prayer is a special holiday in the Protestant Church.

Eleven days before the first Advent, the believers should show repentance for sins committed and reflect.

Over time, the meaning of the day has changed.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria writes on its website: “The day of remembrance serves to reflect on individual and social errors such as xenophobia, environmental degradation and the marginalization of the poor and homeless.” Accordingly, every Evangelical Christian has to deal with his own personal problems, sins , and deal with mistakes.

The day has less to do with repentance, despite the name of the holiday.

Saxony celebrates the Day of Repentance and Prayer: Shops remain closed

As soon as a public holiday is in sight, many people wonder whether their food supplies will be guaranteed on that day. If shops remain closed, as is the case, for example, over the Christmas holidays, the shopping trolleys are filled again to the brim in order to be able to survive the upcoming holidays with certainty. Only on the day before the day of repentance and prayer should the shops in Germany not be overrun, because the shops remain open. Only Saxony is the exception with a public holiday. In this state, not only are the schools closed, the shops are also closed. This nationwide difference was not always the same.

As early as 1934, the day of penance and prayer was declared a public holiday in the entire German Reich and this day was retained even after reunification.

In 1995 economic and political reforms followed, to which the holiday fell victim.

From then on, only Saxony legally continued the holiday.

Since then, special regulations have applied in all other federal states.

The day of penance and prayer is considered a silent holiday alongside Corpus Christi or Good Friday.

In the federal states of Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Schleswig-Holstein, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt there is therefore a ban on dancing.

Shops for shoppers in Saxony despite a public holiday

Despite closed shops, the Saxons do not have to do without shopping.

Saxony borders on Thuringia, Bavaria, Brandenburg and Saxony-Anhalt and thus on those federal states in which the cash registers are allowed to ring diligently on the day of repentance and prayer.

If there is an acute need for shopping, the good old Internet can finally be used, because online portals rarely close their virtual gates.

(ale)